City of Witches Chapter 2

The Academy does not have separate facilities prepared for its servants to wash their bodies.

That is to say, they cannot even set foot in the elegant bathrooms equipped with plumbing.

In the end, Siwoo crouched by the well, pouring ice-cold groundwater over himself and shuddering in disgust.

Each time the dried mud pack clinging to his body turned into filthy water, his bones ached with cold.

If only he had a bit more time, he would have lit a fire in the nearby cauldron to make warm water.

Thinking that all of this was because of Amelia venting her anger made his teeth grind.

"Fucking freezing, damn it!"

It had been five years since he was captured and brought to Gehenna to be used as a slave.

To explain this absurd city, one cannot omit an explanation of Witches.

Through encountering various anecdotes in books from the archives and living while brushing against Witches, Siwoo had come to feel keenly what kind of beings they were.

Witches are an arrogant, dangerous, selfish, and madness-obsessed race.

However, this is merely Siwoo's impression of Witches and is far from the actual definition or concept of a Witch.

To speak a bit more objectively, excluding personal feelings,

A Witch refers to one who bears a 'Brand' engraved on their body and can simultaneously wield Magic.

The one who first informed him of this was the slave trader who kidnapped Siwoo and brought him to Gehenna.

The slave trader, whose face was covered in thick scars, gave Siwoo advice that wasn't quite advice.

'If you want to preserve your life, never go against a Witch.'

Thinking about it now, it's a laughable statement.

Not only did he kidnap him while he was living his life just fine, but to give advice received from the very person he was going to sell him to...

But Siwoo still vividly remembered the instinctual fear etched on the slave trader's face.

Five years had passed since he was sold at a slave auction to a city hall official and assigned as a caretaker at Trinity Academy.

Through eavesdropping on Amelia's lectures or flipping through books in the archives, Siwoo came to understand what that slave trader had said back then.

The fear towards Witches was not solely because of the Magic they possessed.

What truly made Witches frightening was their goals and the methods they used to achieve them.

All Witches live to catch up to the great Magic of the 'Witch of Creation'.

For a Witch pursuing a higher path of the Magic Path, experimental ethics or morality are secondary concerns.

In reality, it is said that private slaves, not city hall slaves, are assigned to harsh labor close to forced servitude, and some even die during secret human experiments.

It might sound a bit too complicated.

To put it in one word, they are crazy bitches who go nuts over Magic.

The determination of middle-aged men going through menopause searching for stamina-boosting foods is nothing compared to a Witch's obsession with Magic.

"Crazy bitches..."

What would have happened if the city hall official hadn't bought Siwoo at the slave auction?

Whenever such hypotheticals crossed his mind, he couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine.

He had wasted too much time.

After vigorously drying his hair with a towel that had been used for over three years and now had three holes in it, he put on loose white clothes without any underwear.

It was a stiff fabric containing not a bit of synthetic fiber, with a dress-like design that barely covered the body.

This garment, referred to as a lab coat within Trinity Academy, was less of clothing and more aptly described as a clean burlap sack.

Just lifting the skirt-like hem slightly would expose the private parts, so that says it all.

Donning the lab coat he never got used to no matter how many times he wore it, Siwoo headed straight for the Second Lecture Hall.

Trinity Academy, located in Renomond Town.

Here, the education of apprentice witches and the research of Witches take place.

The Academy's lecture halls, arranged in a cross shape aligned with the cardinal directions, are stone buildings combining 17th-century Baroque style with Gehenna's unique architectural style.

Among them, the recently renovated northern Second Lecture Hall was reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles. That's how lavishly and ostentatiously it was decorated.

Although Siwoo found everything about Gehenna's class society, system, and origins disagreeable, he would often utter pure admiration when looking at such aesthetically pleasing architecture.

Passing through the corridors stretching like blood vessels through all the lecture halls and entering the hall of the Second Lecture Hall, a crystal chandelier, faintly burning candelabras, and ceiling paintings praising the wonder and beauty of Magic welcomed Siwoo.

Beneath them, standing with a pensive expression, her gaze fixed intently downward, was Amelia Marigold.

She occasionally became lost in thought like that by herself.

Pointed-toe shoes called poulaines, a mermaid dress that subtly revealed the silhouette of her body, and a cloak draped over her shoulders.

The overall color was black.

As it was a class for apprentice witches, it was the formal attire that was both difficult to put on and take off.

The garments Amelia inherited from the previous 'Marigold' were each larger than her body.

Because of that, Amelia, holding a book as large as her upper body while gently furrowing her brow, looked extremely small.

"......"

For a moment, Siwoo forgot his own situation and gazed at her profile as if entranced.

A fact he hated to admit but couldn't deny while despising Witches was that all Witches are beautiful.

The lush, voluptuous blonde hair cascading over the black cloak, lips as red as forbidden fruit, the soft curves revealed by the drape of her clothes.

It was dazzling to the point of being unbelievable as something of a human.

Amelia seemed to blend into the gorgeous and luxurious scenery of the hall like a statue.

"Associate Professor."

At Siwoo's call, Amelia slowly blinked her eyes.

Almost immediately, within less than five seconds, she turned to look at Siwoo with a chilly expression.

Amelia took out a pocket watch from her cloak's pocket and checked the time.

"It's three minutes past noon. Do I look that idle to you?"

"I arrived on the hour. However, it seemed the Associate Professor was deeply contemplating the truths of Magic, and I did not wish to disturb you."

In truth, he had been standing there blankly, stealing glances at her profile, but that seemed to have been the wrong choice.

"Wrong. You should have called me instead of standing there blankly. The time I confirmed the caretaker's arrival is three minutes after the agreed time, i.e., the point of being late. Unless I am aware, there's no way for me to know whether the caretaker was late or on time, right?"

"My apologies."

Siwoo's apology was swift. It wasn't the first or second time he had been caught on such a trivial pretext.

Although Amelia always acted as if she would devour him, surprisingly, if he apologized promptly, she didn't say much else.It seemed she thought it beneath her dignity to nitpick the words of a lowly slave and reprimand him.

"Enough. I'd rather teach Magic to lab rats than expect wise judgment from you."

"I'm truly sorry."

But today, Amelia's nagging was unusually long.

Her sharp scolding continued, aimed at the back of Siwoo's bowed head.

"I've been overlooking the manager's mistakes quite generously until now. Yet you keep making obvious errors because there's been no proper punishment."

This is ominous.

"For the next week, after finishing your afternoon duties, you will clean my research building."

"Huh?"

This was blatant harassment.

If she used Magic herself, she could finish the cleaning neatly within three minutes. However, for Siwoo, a mere human and not a Witch, cleaning that complex lab would easily take over three hours.

Using a mere three-minute tardiness as a pretext, Amelia had ordered three hours of overtime on top of an already insufficient twelve-hour workday.

"After already breaking the appointment time, do you intend to refuse even this?"

Siwoo couldn't say anything.

Amelia ended the conversation with an action that showed she would accept no rebuttal or complaint.

She unilaterally threw a large book against Siwoo's chest and then turned her steps toward the stairs.

Siwoo, who almost let a curse slip his lips at this outrageous act, barely managed to swallow it back.

He saw Amelia's back as she climbed the stairs, dragging a Cloak that was too long for her height, trailing on the floor.

He wanted to stomp on it and make her fall backward.

It wouldn't be difficult. But he wasn't confident he could handle the consequences.

Dragging his shoulders, now heavier than before, Siwoo followed Amelia.

"Take your seats."

These were Amelia's first words upon entering the classroom, without even a greeting.

Despite the gloomy weather, the classroom, which exuded an undimmed, elegant grace, had a tiered structure with desks arranged around a wide blackboard.

While the structure seemed suitable for a large lecture, the actual area was so small it would be completely full with just twenty people.

But there was no need to worry.

Because the apprentice witches waiting in the classroom for the lesson numbered only two.

The two girls, clinging to each other as if they were one body, grinned at Siwoo and sat at a table.

The atmosphere was a bit unsettled, as if they had just been chattering away.

Siwoo placed the heavy book on the lectern and stood at attention beside Amelia.

Then he couldn't help but flinch under the gaze of the pair of violet eyes staring intently at him.

The identical twins, as if copied and pasted from each other, had focused all their attention on Siwoo the moment Amelia entered.

Odette and Odil.

They were the only apprentice witches who had been taking classes at Trinity Academy for the past two years.

Jet-black hair and dazzlingly radiant violet eyes.

They sat with an innocent air, as if unaware of the ways of the world, but Siwoo knew.

Innocence does not always signify goodness.

A child crushes an ant with an innocent face.

It can be said that the innocence these twins possessed was closer to that kind of pure ferocity.

"Professor Amelia! Is today's class with Assistant Shin Siwoo?"

"Professor Amelia! Is the class with the assistant today?"

They began to chatter almost Simultaneously, their voices clear and high-pitched like birdsong.

Their voices were so alike that without looking closely at their mouths, it would be hard to tell who was speaking.

"That's right."

Amelia, already sighing stealthily as if tired, and Odil and Odette, who simultaneously looked at each other and giggled. Even that sight was so identical, as if reflected in a mirror, it was enough to create an unpleasant valley.

""What kind of experiment is it today?""

Amelia, the 15th Merigold Amelia, an Associate Professor at Trinity Academy who had also achieved the high realm of 22 paths.

She belonged to the 'Baron' class, an extremely rare nobility even within witch society.

Originally, it wouldn't be a status for mere apprentice witches like the twins to chatter away so freely.

And it was even less likely that Amelia was some virtuous saint enduring such behavior.

"Male bodily fluids and..."

"Kyaaah! That's too obscene."

"Kyaaah! How can something be so indecent!"

Odil and Odette making a fuss before she even finished speaking.

Seeing Amelia bite her lip hard, Siwoo felt a rare sense of satisfaction.

Amelia's expression of bewilderment almost only appeared when dealing with these twins.

Siwoo didn't know how Odil and Odette, mere fledgling apprentice witches, could elicit such reactions.

Still, the rare sight of the great Amelia being flustered was quite a spectacle.

"...male interpersonal relationships."

"Do we strip them to see?"

"This time, we are stripping them, right?"

"That's right."

The satisfaction was short-lived.

Saying they were people Amelia found difficult to deal with meant, in other words, they were people Siwoo had to be cautious around no matter what he did.

Having to engage in humiliating play in front of such twins was true yesterday, today, and probably tomorrow.

It wouldn't change until he escaped this damned city.

"But before the actual experiment, we need to check how well Miss Odette and Miss Odil are following the lessons."

"But theory is boring, isn't it?"

"That's right, that's right. Witch Gemernai said theory of Magic not put into practice is meaningless."

However, it wasn't as if Amelia was always swayed by the twins.

Amelia had the dignity of an Associate Professor, and when she started to set the tone, the twins also tended to follow instructions well.

Amelia completely ignored the twins' whining complaints and rapped sharply on the lectern.

"Submit the assignment I gave you last class."

"Yes!"

"Yes! Professor."

The twins, after sneaking a glance, turned into obedient children and submitted a bundle of papers.

Even if they seemed naive and immature, they were still apprentice witches.

At a glance, the assignment, scrawled with complex Magic Formulas and equations, seemed to be dozens of pages long.

Siwoo, who became interested and tried to skim the content of the assignment, flinched.

Because even at this very moment, the two girls' gazes were fixed on him.